VALLEY METH FIGHTERS SAY FUNDING FALLS SHORT

WASHINGTON -- Central Valley narcotics officers and their congressional
allies are pushing for a sizable boost in federal funding. Without it, they
say, the region will continue manufacturing way too much illegal
methamphetamine.

"We're fighting a forest fire with a garden hose," said federal drug
fighter Bill Ruzzamenti, who runs anti-meth operations in the Valley.
"These are cases that are international in nature, and we're handling it on
a shoestring budget."

The international stakes are only getting higher amid a U.S. war on terror,
as Ruzzamenti noted that Middle Eastern gangs in Canada are now thought
responsible for most of a precursor chemical, pseudoephedrine, used in
Central Valley meth labs. The possibility that the gangs' profits could
fund terrorism worries U.S. officials.

Even though officials believe some meth manufacturing has shifted out of
state, they say California has a lot more room for improvement. At one
point, officials estimated that the state was responsible for 80 percent or
more of the nation's meth production.

But there also are turf and political stakes involved as federal officials
strive for control of both budget and policy, and as local lawmakers seek
to steer more funding back home. The latest funding requests are, in this
light, the latest illustration of how once-limited programs take root and grow.

The pitch for added funding, for instance, comes on top of what's already
been a tenfold increase in federal spending on designated anti-drug regions
since 1990. As skeptics of government programs ceaselessly point out, it is
the iron law of bureaucracy for agencies to expand wherever possible.

Friday, about 30 House members urged colleagues in a Capitol Hill letter to
jack up anti-meth spending in the Central Valley by 60 percent. The
lawmakers sought a similar increase last year and thought they'd succeeded,
but they were frustrated by the competing plans of the White House drug
czar's office.

"We have a serious problem," said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, "and when the
Congress allocates money, we want it spent in our own back yard."

Nunes helped spearhead the latest letter, which was signed by all of the
San Joaquin Valley's other House members as well as representatives from
other states. It's an issue crossing state lines, as 89 House members
belong to what's informally called the House Meth Caucus.

Even so, Ruzzamenti speculated that "there's an East Coast mentality"
involved in some funding disputes, as Washington-based officials have been
more focused on cocaine than on trade in meth, or speed.

Based in Fresno, Ruzzamenti is director of the Central Valley High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. With $2.5 million in federal funds
this year, and about a dozen federally paid staffers, the program targets
the rampant meth trade from Sacramento to Kern counties.

About 114 state and local officers are participating in the nine counties
that Central Valley HIDTA serves.

Ruzzamenti and San Joaquin Valley lawmakers want an additional $1.5 million
for the Central Valley program. That would help pay for financial analysts
to track the money trail and for sheriff's deputies to help identify rogue
chemical supply operations; most fundamentally, Ruzzamenti said, it would
help offset local burdens.

"It is really a drain on a lot of departments, in tough budget times,"
Ruzzamenti said of the anti-meth effort.

Congress authorized the HIDTA program in 1988, and it began with five
designated areas. There are now 26, and they span most of the country. On
just the West Coast, for instance, there are individual HIDTA programs
targeting the Northwest, Oregon, Northern California, the Central Valley,
Los Angeles and the Southwest border.

The proliferation has helped lock in congressional support, boosting total
HIDTA spending to $226 million, and each program also claims a number of
success stories. Of 273 meth "super labs" seized in 2001, for example, 199
were found in California.